Coincident
by mellish
Summary: There's something curiously musical about her voice, about her whole stature, which makes Marceline less sleepy all of a sudden. Marceline/Bonnibel, University AU, tracing a relationship from beginning to end.


**Coincident**

They're not roommates the first term. Bonnibel lives two rooms down the hall, too far away for Marceline to pay any attention to her existence; she knows about the scholarship and the bizarre hair color, and the rumors that Bonnibel's the daughter of a foreign monarch, or possibly an alien. It's not much compared to the gossip surrounding Marceline, of course – that she's a vampire is an old one, and after the first half-month someone's saying she's a succubus and someone else that she's the daughter of a demon lord and she can slurp your soul out from your eyes, if you stare long enough. She smirks at that one, because no one's got the guts to try, and she's gotten pretty skilled at raising an eyebrow to speed defeat if necessary.

Marceline lives with a horrible creature named Melissa who does nothing but talk on her phone all day in a voice calculated to rupture eardrums. Marceline retaliates one weekend by returning from home with a bass guitar, shoving her amp into the room with a vengeful booted foot. Instruments are not technically allowed, but when the floor leader comes in Marceline does her best mix of evil eye and sweet smile and the girl folds over like a paper doll. Melissa's complaints get progressively ridiculous, and at some point Marceline calmly empties a bottle of black ink into their shared washing machine while Melissa's clothes are in it.

Only sheer luck keeps them from strangling each other before the end of the semester, and by then half the housing department has been reduced to tears. Melissa gets shunted to the villas on the other side of campus, to share a suite with a friend she suspiciously refers to as Lumpy; Marceline begs off a major transfer because she is a lazy ass, and gets moved two rooms down.

#

It's not nice to form assumptions, but the new roommate makes it difficult. Her bed is adorned with a row of stuffed animals, there's an honest-to-god _candy dispenser_ on her bedside table next to something that looks nerdy and magnetic, and her bookshelf is so overstuffed it looks on the verge of collapse. Her desk looks like the wreckage of someone's failed lab experiment, but otherwise, everything else is immaculate; Marceline has a feeling that if she opened the other girl's closet she'd find skirts in varying shades of pink and not much else. Marceline dumps her duffel bag against the wall next to her amp and bass stand and flops on the bed. She's just about to doze off into a slightly uncomfortable sleep when New Roommate walks in and utters a short cry, before catching herself and going, "Oh, so _you're_ the new roommate, aren't you? I didn't think you'd come in without me in here, so you caught me by surprise. I apologize."

There's something curiously musical about her voice, about her whole stature, which makes Marceline less sleepy all of a sudden. She sits up. "Housing gave me a key," she explains, opening her palm to show proof.

"I'm Bonnibel," the girl answers shortly. She holds her hand out, like she'd really rather not.

Marceline sticks out her hand, but reaches up and seizes a lock of pink hair instead. She twirls it around her finger with interest. "So what's with this? You trying for cotton candy?"

"Don't _do _that," Bonnibel nearly shrieks, jerking her head away. "I – I have a _condition, _okay." Her face puckers with distaste.

"Yeah, _bitchiness_," Marceline mutters under her breath, but she won't let this encounter rag on her liberation from Melissa. She lies back on her bed and says, more to the ceiling than the girl standing across her, "Pleased to make your acquaintance, Bonnibel. You can call me Marceline."

#

It's not an awesome start, but proximity works in strange ways, and at some point the uneasy tension is replaced by something resembling…resignation, maybe? Peace? An approximation of comfort? Marceline starts calling her _princess_, because it seems to fit, and for some reason Bonnibel is not opposed to the nickname, which makes Marceline think some rumors might be more likely than others. Bonnibel's cool with the guitar as long as Marceline doesn't play it with the amp on while she's studying, and the frequent mini-explosions that occur on Bonnibel's desk don't bug Marceline at all.

"I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to do those things outside of the lab, though," she drawls one time, upending a glass of water on what looks like a burning cactus. The smoke smells terrible in a fruity way, and Marceline opens the windows while Bonnibel coughs and splutters.

Another time Marceline is having one of her exaggerated rages at Ash over the phone, and by the end of it she's barely fighting back tears and summoning all of her willpower to avoid smashing her phone to pieces. Bonnibel floats by wordlessly and hands her a mug full of sinfully thick cocoa and half-melted marshmallows and Marceline doesn't even _like_ chocolate but it turns out to be just what she needs.

Neither of them spend too much time in the room – the band stuff is really kicking off, and god knows how many teachers Bonnibel is playing research assistant for – but there are pockets of time when they happen to be quiet together. Sometimes Bonnibel helps her through Math and Science homework, while she whisks them both through History; when Bonnibel asks why she's so good at it (with just a twinge of jealousy), Marceline offers no explanations, and that's that.

#

So maybe it's not too surprising that Bonnibel agrees when she invites her to the next gig. It's not the princess's scene – not that Marceline pretends she knows what _scene_ Bonnibel subscribes to, if at all – but she seems curiously pleased by the ticket. "It's Battle of the Bands," Marceline says, and finds herself adding, "It's not going to be _that _awesome, and there will be tons of shitty amateurs – but anyway, I can get some people in for free. So."

"And your band's not amateur?" Bonnibel asks, calculated and hard despite her exceedingly delicate looks, and Marceline finds herself thinking, _this is not a girl you can mess with_.

"We won't be," Marceline answers, as confident as her skill will allow, and the thought continues: _neither am I._

She spends the rest of the week rehearsing and they don't talk much, and she's almost forgotten about the invite until she's onstage, doing her sound-check, and she sees someone in the throng of tattered shirts and distressed denim wearing a freaking white button down and a pale blue pleated skirt. It's an effort not to burst out laughing before they dive into the first song, and then she loses herself in the music as per usual and it's four songs and an encore later, after old and new fans have expressed their enthusiasm, that someone taps her on the shoulder a little more hesitantly than the occasion calls for.

"That was…really…cool," Bonnibel says, like she doesn't have quite the precise words to describe her first experience of a rock concert. Possibly any concert.

Since Marceline has been high-fiving/being high-fived and hugging/being hugged nonstop for the last ten minutes she figures this is too formal. She grabs Bonnibel by the shoulders, gives her a little shake of joy (or it could be the adrenaline) and says, "Thanks for coming!"

There's something particularly pretty about Bonnibel's smile – Marceline always thought it was _unsettlingly _pretty, in the same way that her hair tended to shine like a beacon under the cheap stage lighting – that makes Marceline laugh and say, "But next time, princess, _I_ am going to dress you up." Like there's definitely going to be a next time; like she's entitled to make sure there is.

#

The t-shirt is painfully generic and starts out almost like a joke, something she digs up from her closet that she hasn't really worn since freshman year on account of the skull-and-cute-impaled-marshmallows-motif that she has since outgrown. But Bonnibel seems pleased by it, partly because of the novelty, "and partly because it reminds me of something vaguely pagan and related to reptiles that I read once in elementary, and I can't recall the details but I remember it was _truly_ fascinating and – _ahem, _you can stop laughing now, Marceline."

In any case, it fits Bonnibel a lot better than it fits Marceline, due to an Unfortunate Dryer Incident, so she grins and says, "Well since you like it, it's yours."

#

She's back in the ol' mansion for summer break and Dad is by turns absent or embarrassing: ignoring her completely in front of his minions, but acting like she's still five and cuddly when they're alone. It's unbearable. She complains about cramps as often as she can get away with, and eats only half of everything because after dorm food it's all too rich for her stomach. For once they don't have a massive screaming match over the stupidity of attending a private girls' college. That first week, Ash swings by and they go out to lunch, which ends with him being a massive douche and her throwing a plate at him. The next day she breaks up with him, and doesn't feel as shitty as she would have imagined - in fact, she doesn't feel much of anything at all. Maybe lightness. Maybe like there's more room for herself in her brain.

She spends the rest of her days slapping bass and writing songs and playing tricks on the minions and sometimes thinking, unexpectedly, about pink and science and smoke.

#

They didn't do anything in particular to retain the same housing, but apparently everyone's wary enough of them both that they end up in the same room together. By the time Marceline wanders in, slightly pissed from the last leg of the commute she _knows_ she insisted on taking, Bonnibel is already arranging a new stash of books. Marceline's not sure whether she should shake Bonnibel's hand or hug her or just wave and say hi, or even just slip into routine and not mind her. Thankfully Bonnibel solves the problem by giving her a wide grin and bounding up to her in excitement.

"I made you something over summer break," she enthuses, handing over a box wrapped with a pink bow. Marceline lifts the cover off and inspects the contents: all sorts of candy packets (maybe Bonnibel's dad is a candy conglomerate?) and a little jar in the middle with a homemade-looking label that reads, upon closer inspection, _for finger calluses, headaches, and stress relief_.

"You made this for me?" Marceline says, just a little in awe.

"Don't apply it more than twice a day," Bonnibel answers. She looks a little self-conscious, all of a sudden, though she tries to hide it by babbling on. "And all the ingredients are in the label, and you have to read them carefully or else you shouldn't really apply it, as _I_ don't want to be responsible for anything if you don't bother to cure your ignorance through the simple willful act of reading."

Marceline opens the jar, scoops out a little spoonful and dabs it on Bonnibel's nose. It smells like menthol and bubblegum. Bonnibel's offended surprise is tempered by the smile that creeps onto her face.

"If this doesn't work, I'll sue you," Marceline says, and for some reason that makes them both burst into laughter.

#

The kiss happens like a cliché in a bad coming-of-age movie, with a director who no longer knows what young people are really like – but they _must _be like this, sweaty and drunk after the first gig of the year, noise everywhere and shirts already rucked-up to show the last of people's summer tans and suddenly there's a game involving acide-colored shots piled up into a tower and _who can drink them the fastest? _They're the two losers, inevitably, Marceline because she's already had too much and Bonnibel because she's never had this much and everyone is going crazy, everyone is telling them to kiss and Bonnibel is wearing that black t-shirt like she finally fits in, despite the fact that she has double any person's brain, like somehow they're not so much passing acquaintances as something that fits together, and Marceline shrugs and grabs her and puts their mouths together.

It's definitely not her first kiss, not even her first kiss with a girl, but something about it leaves her just a little breathless. Bonnibel freezes up at first and there's this terrible moment when it's entirely possible that they are going to throw up on each other, but the moment passes, and everyone is hollering, but Marceline can't hear anything except Bonnibel's breathing, can't see anything except Bonnibel's hesitant, hazy smile.

#

It's not a great idea and they both seem to know this, but it doesn't really matter, at least after that first sober morning when they wake up mutually feeling like death and _remembering._ They spend the next few minutes making confused faces at each other, until Bonnibel finally sighs and puts her hands on her hips and goes, "_Well._"

"What," Marceline says, feeling like she's going to get tasered any minute now. She was the one who grabbed the other girl's shoulders, she was the one who leaned in first, but whether it's memory or wishful thinking that tells her Bonnibel closed the gap, she isn't sure.

"Well, so, what's going on here? Is this okay? I don't," Bonnibel gropes the air, like she's trying to find words, and Marceline thinks _damn that's adorable._ "I don't _like_ not knowing what's up."

"What's up?" Marceline tries for cool and thinks she ultimately achieves it, with one sly smile, even if her heart is pounding too quickly.

Bonnibel blushes, looks away, then looks back at her, wavering between certainty and crushing embarrassment. "So, I'm okay with this – whatever – if you are."

Marceline feels something inside her melt – it wasn't the hangover making her feel sick after all, or not all of it, anyway – and she walks over to Bonnibel who's still wearing _her_ shirt and she says, "Oh, I'm _fine_ with it, Bonnibel, ma belle." Loops her arms over Bonnibel and _looks_ at her, then realizes she's not great with silence. "Never thought you'd want to be my groupie," she adds, and when Bonnibel's face twists into a sour grimace she laughs, kisses her nose and then her lips, whispers into her ear, "You can be my girl."

#

There are different ways of describing how time passes. One would be the rapid movement of the days, darting from classes to research lab (Bonnibel) to band practice (Marceline) to quick walks around campus, violent games of tennis, baking triumphs and cooking fiascos and study breaks that involve intense games of Mario Kart (Bonnibel brought over her old Wii after one long weekend and despite using Princess Peach was actually really _good_ at the game). Another part would be suspended time: the coffee breaks during the weekend when they complain about what it's like to have so much expectation dumped on you; the quiet afternoons when Marceline is writing a new song and messing around with chord progressions and Bonnibel goes "Hey, that was nice"; the comfort of falling asleep together, curled up into each other, after an exhausting finals week. Three semesters pass and it's practically a routine, and Marceline finds herself wondering some days what it was like before, then deciding it doesn't matter.

#

For family weekend in junior year, Dad sends Marshall, because Dad is an idiot, and Marshall shows up eerily dapper with some new hipster haircut, which makes Marceline roll her eyes.

"This is my cousin," Marceline says, and Bonnibel gives him her usual brisk "Oh-hello"-with-handshake. She's been preoccupied the whole day, fretting over her parents' visit. They'd both ignored the event the past two years, but this year apparently one of Bonnibel's teachers had expressed a desire to meet her folks and she had not had the heart to refuse; and Dad had for once read his email and decided that someone needed to go scout out what the hell went on in a girl's school, anyway, and whether his exorbitant tuition payments were being put to good use. Bonnibel excuses herself shortly after to go prep some presentation, and as soon as she leaves Marshall leans against the table and says, "So, your roommate. Taken, or not taken?"

Marceline raises one eyebrow and says, "With _you, _dude? Nope. Not in a million years."

"Only a million?" Marshall shoots back, laughing in a way that Marceline knows can be particularly lethal. She rolls her eyes, punches his shoulder, lets him play a demo on her acoustic. Then it's time for the welcome speech. They yawn through it, and through the keynote address, and at the lawn picnic after Marceline spots Bonnibel several blankets away, sandwiched between two professors and what looks to be a pair of excruciatingly perfect parents – their minute movements and stiff backs utterly indicate old money, and either it is the reflection of the trees, or their hair colors really _are_ oddly bright.

Bonnibel shoots her a helpless look, and Marceline mouths, _you'll be fine._ Bonnibel tries to smile back.

#

Things are different after family weekend, but Marceline is either too tired or too distracted to make much of it. She palms a leaf away from Bonnibel's hair and feels her shudder; she puts her lips against Bonnibel's ear and Bonnibel sighs, but it's this kind of sigh you can't place. And it's junior year, so of course they're busy, of course they're wrapping things up, and Marceline's fucked if the band doesn't take off and she can't get a job and Dad will waggle his eyebrows and tell her it's fate, she's meant to take over the family business, when that's the last thing she ever wants to do. When she sings, she sings like her throat is going to give out.

The night before Christmas break she crawls into Bonnibel's bed and just presses her forehead into her girlfriend's back, inhaling her weird sugary smell. Something inside her goes _what's happening, what's wrong,_ but she doesn't say that. She doesn't say anything.

Bonnibel rolls over and stares at her, huge eyes sleepy and hollow and blinking. Bright like starlight. Marceline should really stop trying to write songs every second. Bonnibel puts her hand up against Marceline's cheek and stares at her, like she's thinking very carefully about something. The silence comes and pours itself between their bones. Bonnibel smiles in a way that, for some inexplicable reason, breaks Marceline's heart. She shifts.

"What?" Bonnibel whispers.

"What yourself," Marceline says, and curls her fingers into Bonnibel's hair, and wonders why she feels like she is going to splinter apart any second now.

Bonnibel opens her mouth, hesitates, hesitates, and then closes her mouth. She kisses Marceline, long and sweet and slow, and Marceline thinks about that taste, sugar with the bite of coffee beneath it. She thinks of all the fucked-up boys and girls she'd messed with. She thinks _this is some kind of dream. _Bonnibel pulls away and tucks her head against Marceline's chest, breathing lightly now, just about ready to go sleep again.

"What are you thinking?" she asks.

"I'm thinking about how much it'll suck to be home for Christmas," Marceline says.

Bonnibel laughs. She sounds exhausted. "Oh, believe me. I know." She shifts her shoulder, or maybe she's shrugging. "What can you do," she says, and that's the end of that.

Marceline sighs and shuts her eyes. She's not thinking about Christmas at all. She's thinking about how this is some kind of dream, and dreams don't last.

#

Bonnibel is the kind of girl who has things go her way, without much struggle. Like the world just conspires to make itself more beautiful to her; like she's someone the universe has to please. That doesn't mean she hasn't been broken, that she's never felt sadness, or terror or fury or all the usual things life makes one feel. It just means she has less excuses. It just means she needs to do more.

Marceline thinks caring for a person like that is exhilarating and scary, horribly scary. It's like holding a test tube and not knowing what's inside it, not knowing how much damage will be done if it breaks apart.

#

So of course, when it happens, it happens too easily, one dewy spring evening soon after they get back from break, when they haven't had a real conversation in weeks, haven't kissed or snuggled together, on account of a new semester. Her rejection is cruel and quick and efficient as a five-item quiz for mandatory lab.

"I should have seen this coming," Marceline says. Anger. It beats crying.

One thing she always hated about Bonnibel was the other girl's need to overexplain everything. To be right. To have the last word. "Don't say that," Bonnibel says, fingers shoved into her sweater pockets, cross legged on the floor. "We just – look. You've got – your dad is – and mine too. We're just –"

"We don't work outside of these walls," Marceline said. "Outside of school, outside your classes and my gigs and you – you think that's okay, you're not even going to try. Fine. I'm not surprised." She gets up, breathing hard. She needs to get out of here. She can't look at Bonnibel without wanting to break something, and she's damn good at breaking things.

"Marceline," Bonnibel says, and there's a hint of pleading now, battling with the warning, her longing to say _I won't listen to this_. Such a fucking princess. "It's not just me. _Please _try to understand. _Please_. It's for you, too." She stands, but Marceline won't look at her. "Tell me you think it could be different."

_No,_ Marceline screams, but in her head, while she's stomping around the room looking for something to grasp, somewhere to go. _No no no I don't think so, you're right, you're always fucking right, but I want to see you rip yourself to shreds over this, I want some sign that we weren't just driving headlong into this –_

_I want to know what you were thinking when we last kissed – _

_Stop stop stop stop_

And she's calm, suddenly, just a pure white rage washing over her, making everything clear. She's done trashing her stuff just for the heck of it, she's just…"I'm done," she says, beyond any feeling. She doesn't look at Bonnibel. She ignores the part of her that says she ought to try. Instead, she looks at the open door. She walks through it.

#

They talk again twenty-four hours later, but not in the way Marceline wants them to, not in a way that really means anything. They apologize, and call it quits. The rest of the school year is one long horrendous play at normalcy. Marceline commits stupid slip-ups; when they discuss class she always ends up leaning too close, or putting her fingers on Bonnibel's shoulder so she can better read whatever Bonnibel's writing. Sometimes she still calls her princess. Sometimes they still laugh and it's a strange, crazy thing that floats in the air between them, threatening to descend and crush them all. They get through it, somehow, weeks and weeks of not knowing really what to do with each other, with their hands and gestures and eyes. By the end of it Marceline feels nothing like herself, and it's nearly summer and she's got zero material and Karina the drummer booked their big EP recording mid-fall and they will go into the studio with nothing, absolutely nothing workable if she doesn't get her shit together. She tries to think about that more than anything else.

And honestly – but not honestly – most days it's – almost just like their first semester together. Not quite understanding that person across the room. Saying her name, without any real meaning behind it. Almost, but not quite, because sometimes Marceline lies awake at night with her heart being squeezed while she thinks about the spaces between two beds as canyons. Oceans. Something impossible to cross, or not with any real effort that she can muster, because what if there's nothing on the other side? She doesn't believe there's anything on the other side.

"Have a good summer," Bonnibel says, her giant purple luggage all zipped up. She's tentative. Marceline thinks, _maybe I never really loved her, because love is a strong word to use_.

"You too," she says, air and lightness and lies.

#

It's better during senior year, because they don't have to see each other all the time. This year they opened the new dorm so there are vacancies to fill, and she gets her own room. Maybe Bonnibel does, too. She doesn't know. They're now deep into their majors and don't cross paths much at all, which suits Marceline just fine. Better than fine. Having the recording helps. Marceline fixes her schedule so that she doesn't have class on Mondays and Fridays, which gives The Scream Queens five days a week to torture themselves playing through the same songs, hacking their older stuff to pieces because it's not good enough, and Marceline has always been a secret perfectionist when it comes to music, but having that raging emptiness-anger-hurt inside her makes things work better. Somehow. She'd always been mad – about her father, about Ash, about the stupid sugary music that got wayyy too much airtime – but she'd also been _okay_ with things. Cheerful, even, when she wanted to be. She is not okay now and she knows that because she is all about being real to herself, and if her fucked-upness is going to serve any purpose it might as well be with music.

She barely scrapes through her fall term and finds that she's knocked out enough of her required courses to complete her Political Science degree – which she took to appease Dad in case music didn't pan out, although that was never an actual option for her – and she finally stops wincing whenever she walks by the chem labs or sees something that is a specific shade of pink.

Five days into Christmas break Ash comes over with his guitar. The stupid housekeeper forgot about the break-up and let him in. He sidles into her room and sits down and asks her to play him something, and she doesn't feel burning fury anymore, just a dull resignation as she picks up her guitar and sings about loneliness.

"Mar-Mar," he says. "Babe," he says.

She isn't lying about the loneliness. She slips her fingers into his belt hooks and kisses him.

A memory surfaces, of someone asking, _why do you date a jerk who doesn't appreciate you?_

_Does it matter,_ she wonders, as Ash's hands circle her waist, as he tells her how much he's missed her. _Has anyone really appreciated me?_

_#_

The album drops the week after graduation so Marceline can't focus much. She doesn't even try. She spaces out while the esteemed female alumni blabs about their duty to the world, as fresh graduates – although she can't ignore the little niggling voice that says _you know who would be perfect for that pedestal, someday_. Something inside her still wriggles when the princess steps up to the stadium, about a billion medals flashing on her neck, as she shakes the hand of three professors, all beaming at her with pride.

The princess. Her princess, once. Whatever. She gets her two degrees and strains for a smile at the cameras, and hopes the distribution's going smoothly and that the iTunes Approval Process works out completely. Dad takes her out for a sickeningly decadent dinner with various Important Persons that Marceline could really give less fucks about, and she lets them talk all over her as she composes in her head. Writing lyrics down. Just an inch away from freedom.

#

The record goes platinum in five weeks.

#

Living the dream is a weird kind of happiness. She has wanted this for so long that success feels, deliciously, like revenge. The Scream Queens start touring almost right away, and their agent goes full time and gets them a manager and the whole shebang and suddenly they have to do music videos too. Marceline is inundated by a flood of TV, radio, podcast, magazine interviews, most of them with the band but some of them solo. Sometimes she feels that _I just want to fucking sing_ rage that she's read about, in other singers, but most of the time she's not that selfish, she always wanted to play for others, anyway, dramatic and stupid as that sounds. Playing for who? For anyone, for the universe, for any voice who will hear and listen. The lovers and the leftovers and those with their hearts bleeding on their sleeves, those who never wanted to say yes – those who understand to the depths of their bones, and those who don't but can maybe say, at least, _that was really cool_.

It's that odd warm thought, that specter of someone, that Marceline holds to herself – in dreaming, and sometimes beyond it, too. She plays until her fingers feel like they're going to come off.

#

She doesn't notice her at their Holiday Concert, in that dim bar in Karina's hometown; the venue packed, half the people already drunk or high, lolling their heads, making out with their lovers. They've done this as a little Thanksgiving show, to all of their earlier fans; Marceline told her manager to send invites specifically to those who had attended their first gigs, a whole thirty-two months ago. Light years away. She adjusts the Santa cap on her head and thanks everyone for coming, they're about to call it a wrap, and she'll be signing CDs afterward, chilling at the bar.

She's already let four people buy her drinks when she hears the sharp, defiantly hesitant "Um," and looks up to see Bonnibel in a crisp white button-down and peach skirt, terribly out of place as always. She has on a pink-and-purple scarf that is irritatingly adorable. Marceline thinks she might have a memory of picking that scarf out in a secondhand shop, but she might be giving herself too much credit. "Could you sign this please?" Bonnibel's holding the CD in two hands, like it's a plaque or something, and really she hasn't changed at all. Marceline bursts out laughing, and tells her to wait half an hour so that they can get out of there and get drinks – or coffee – somewhere less crowded.

People treat her to a few more drinks as she goes around saying goodbye, telling familiar and totally-not-familiar faces that she's glad they came and she'll see them soon. The first is true. The second, maybe not so much. By the time she has stumbled out with her guitar looped over one shoulder, the colder not quite as cutting with all the post-gig heat she's radiating, she's glad of the drinks, otherwise her nerves would be frazzled because Bonnibel is still the beacon, the bright spot that almost hurts, but she's never going to let her know that. If she doesn't know it already. Bonnibel never let herself interpret music – too unscientific for her – and she was also dense as a brick, but those were all things Marceline was fine with. (Still losing, in the end, given everything. Still. She could call this joy.)

As they walk, they talk about the weather and the album and Bonnibel's PhD track Master's program in Chemical-Biology-Nutrition-Something. Marceline feels like she's outside herself, watching her doppelganger walk down the street in the snow, talking about the most mundane things with the girl she used to kiss to sleep, the girl who inevitably tore her apart, so easily returning. It's a good thing, maybe, because being outside of herself means she doesn't have to puzzle out what's happening in her chest, what her hands long to do – hold her? Hit her? Nothing, maybe, because nothing is easier and that's what Marceline prefers, at the moment.

It turns out they're in one of those blessed towns that still has a café open at this hour – they find one a few streets over and slip inside it.

It's only when they're seated when Bonnibel asks, "How are you?" Like she has skirted the question until now. It's possible Marceline missed it the first time, what with the moonlight shining down on them and her past suddenly resurfacing, like a song she can't get out of her head. She wonders how to explain the rush, the pride, the joy of stepping up on stage, each time – playing for two hundred people, then five hundred, then a thousand. The innumerable TV viewers. How politically incorrect she can be – but how charming, her media team assures her. How she's since broken up with Ash (twice), a kid named Finn, which didn't work out because maturity issues, and then a Mr. G, one of Marshall's best buds, whom she had sensed from the beginning was weak for Marshall, really. How she's single now, and enjoys being by herself, most of the time. How her father, while he has never congratulated her on her music, is sometimes a little docile now, not so focused on shoving the company down her throat. She has a future with this. She has somehow managed to belt out this pipe dream, raw lungs and all.

She can't explain, so she just says, "I'm doing good. It's been cool. Lots of – stuff to do, every day, so that I keep busy. And you?"

Bonnibel makes a sound that could be a sigh. Relief. Fatigue. The sound sits hollow in Marceline's chest and her hand twitches to crawl across the table and take the other girl's, tell her she's going to get through this, but she doesn't. "That's what happens when you enroll in a PhD program," she says, and Bonnibel laughs, all the notes familiar.

"I'm fine as well," Bonnibel says. "We're taking on fascinating problems, and that's…I always enjoy that." They sip their coffee, make some more small talk, and Marceline has the sudden urge to get up, pay the bill, and walk away. She's quite finished with this. They're not really saying anything anymore, and that's all right, that's fine, that's all this needs to be.

She stays, because she has since learned to start showing some manners. Presently Bonnibel takes out her CD again, and hands it to Marceline.

"I've always loved," Bonnibel starts, and there is a pause, a strange inflection that taints the words as she continues, "Your voice."

Marceline lets the thought hang.

It's the best part of her. Maybe the only part she's every believed deserves loving. She takes the CD, grinning, and pulls out the jacket cover. She fishes her Sharpie out of the front pocket of her guitar case and uncaps it with her teeth. She draws a heart, and then – she can't say it's out of habit, but it could be the mix of alcohol and caffeine and whatever acid is congealing around her chest, she writes

_For my princess_.

She thinks that will suffice, and she slides the cover back into the case and hands it over. Their fingers brush. Marceline holds everything in, holds everything together.

"Thanks," Bonnibel says, not looking at whatever she has written. Her smile starts in the corner of her lips and ends in her eyes.

"It was nothing," Marceline says, and picks up her cup, and drinks the last of what they were together.

* * *

A/N: These two characters mean a lot to me and I wanted to trace their relationship in a way that might somehow echo canon, even if it's an AU. :) Thank you very much for reading! Comments are always greatly appreciated.


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